All it takes is a single look around and I know I’ve really fucked up this time. I’m alone. Carole and Gorog are still in Mammon. I’ve lost all three people I was trying to help, and things aren’t looking so hot for me, either. I’m surrounded by dense jungle. The air is stiflingly humid—so thick that it would be easier to chew it than breathe it. I hear a man screaming in the distance. And the only weapon I’ve got is the dagger I was holding.
There’s a soft crunch behind me. If I hadn’t spent most of my childhood in the woods, I doubt I would have picked up on it. But I spin around just in time to see a man in forest camo barreling toward me with an axe raised high above his head. I duck to the side just as he brings the blade down. If I’d spotted him a second later, he’d have split me in half like a piece of kindling. And I get the impression I’m not the first person Rambo has tried to murder. He recovers quickly and he’s beaming when he comes at me again. The look on his face is one of sheer ecstasy. I can tell the dude really gets off on killing.
I won’t fight. I saw the bodies in the capsules. I saw what happens to them when they die, and I don’t know if Rambo’s wearing a disk. Acting against every instinct I’ve ever possessed, I turn and run instead. My avatar is fast, but my opponent’s no slouch, and he knows the jungle far better than I do. He stays right behind me. So when I see the opportunity to slip between the fronds of a prehistoric-size fern, I happily seize it.
Rambo isn’t easily fooled. The avatar runs past my hiding place, then comes to a stop.
“Come out, come out, wherever you are!” he calls. “I’ve got to be on a client call in fifteen minutes, and I need a good look at your intestines before I go.”
The crazy fucker is a headset player.
I’m engaged in a battle to the death with some random business guy who’s never going to die. He may lose his swag and be sent back to setup, but at the end of the day, it’s no big deal. Me? I die and I stay dead. Screw Milo Yolkin and his human experiments. What kind of lunatic lets people die just to figure out what’s killing them?
Fortunately, there is one clear advantage to fighting guests that won’t die. I can slaughter Rambo and keep my conscience nice and clean. I hear him stomping back in my direction. At first I think the jig is up, but then there’s the sound of a large animal darting through the trees nearby, and the avatar turns his beefy back to me. I step out of my hiding spot inside the fern and plunge my dagger between his ribs. Then I pull it out and shove the blade in again as far as it can go. Hot blood pours out of his body and over my hand. It feels fantastic. Not as good as sex, but damn close. It’s like the pressure that’s been building inside me has been released all at once. For a few glorious seconds my head clears, my rage is sated and my whole body feels lighter.
The avatar collapses in a heap at my feet. I steal his weapon and ransack his pockets. They’re totally empty. The only thing the psycho was carrying was his trusty axe. As I stand up, I can feel the pressure beginning to grow again. My head is pounding, and I ache for another release. I’ve never been addicted to drugs, but I’d bet this is what withdrawal feels like.
I crash through the jungle, hacking a jagged path through the vines and branches. Everything around me is green. Leaves the size of elephant ears block the sun, so the light at the forest floor level is dim. This is exactly the kind of environment you’d expect to host dinosaurs. I wouldn’t be shocked to encounter a velociraptor here, but I have a hunch that the dangers in this world are human in nature. And that hunch is confirmed when something buzzes past my temple. A split second later, a handmade dart lodges in a nearby branch.
I slip behind a tree and scan the jungle for my assailant. At first I see no one. Then a shadow passes across a giant leaf about ten feet off the ground, and I throw my dagger toward the movement. I hear the blade hit something soft, and seconds later a body plummets to earth. I step out of my hiding place, well aware that there may be other killers around. Staying low, I cross the jungle to where I think the body fell. I find an avatar that’s about half the size of an average human, with dark green skin and long claws. The fall appears to have knocked it unconscious. My dagger is protruding from its thigh.
It ambushed me. It wanted to kill me. If its aim had been just a little bit better, it would probably be standing over me right now. I should rip the avatar apart and fling the pieces in every direction. But when I pull my knife out of its leg, a splatter of blood hits me, and the sight and smell remind me of Kat’s leg that night at the factory. I don’t know if the avatar belongs to a headset player—or to someone with a disk. So I grit my teeth until the almost-irresistible urge to kill him passes. Then I rip a strip of fabric from the bottom of my robe and fashion a tourniquet.
I confiscate the avatar’s blow darts and head off into the jungle. I take three steps before I hear a low growl and something springs onto my back. The weight of it almost brings me down. I don’t need to look to know it’s the avatar I just stopped myself from killing. I’m so enraged that I barely feel the teeth sink into my neck. I saved its life, and it’s still attacking. I pull out one of its darts, reach back and ram it into its side. The poison on the dart’s tip takes immediate action. The avatar slips off my shoulder. It’s dead when it lands at my feet. I kick the corpse over and over again until I feel the pressure in my head release. If the guy had a disk, this would be my first real kill. I don’t know if it will be my last. But I do know where I am now. I may not know the realm’s name, but it hardly matters. If Mammon was the land of greed, this one is fueled by rage. The Elemental of Mammon wanted me out of the way. He sent me here to this realm to die.
I move much more cautiously now. I’ve painted my skin with mud from the jungle floor and I’ve woven leaves through the fabric of my robe. I’m not invisible, but I’m no longer an obvious target. Which is good, because the jungle is filled with avatars hunting for humans. I’ve managed to avoid most of them, though I did send a couple of headset players back to Start. But I’ve tried not to indulge my desires too much or too often. That’s how Otherworld traps you. It introduces you to sensations you’d never be able to feel in real life. You discover what you’ve been missing—because it’s taboo or illegal or because you lack the guts to do it for real. And when you find what’s missing it’s almost impossible to let it go again.
I would love to take out my axe and chop each and every one of these psychos into bite-size pieces. And that’s exactly why I can’t let myself do it.
After the sun sets, only the thought of Kat keeps me going. I have to reach her. This realm feels even more dangerous in the dark, but I can’t hide and wait for sunrise. I’ve got to find a way out. Then it’s like God reaches down and grabs me by the ankle and rips my foot out from beneath me. I’m weightless, flying through the air, smacking against leaves, scraping against the trunks of trees. I’m high enough to see a patch of starry nighttime sky through the dense forest canopy when my ankle is yanked again and I plunge downward. I bounce back and forth a few times until the movement is finally just a mild bobbing. I’m hanging upside down, racked by dry heaves, my ankle caught in a snare. I’d vomit, but my avatar’s stomach—like mine—is completely empty.
There are only two things that could save me now. I could summon the strength to cut myself down. Or someone in the real world could remove my disk. I know neither of these things is going to happen, and I wait for the pain that’s sure to come.
Something big is stomping toward me. I’m starting to wonder if there might be dinosaurs in this realm after all. Then a tall beast breaks through the foliage. In the silvery moonlight, I can make out a human-shaped body with the head of a wild boar. Its snout is coated in dried mucus and studded with thick black bristles. The eyeballs have rotted away and their sockets are empty black holes. Two sharp yellow tusks jut from the bottom jaw of its open mouth. When it reaches me, the head’s at my eye level, which means the creature has to be seven feet tall. I can see into its open mouth. Inside are two human eyes. Then a face takes shape around them. It’s coated in dried blood. The boar’s head is a mask.
Oh, shit. This cannot be good.
I hear a knife sawing through rope. Suddenly my ankle slips free and I plunge headfirst to the ground. My skull throbs with pain and my vision’s blurred. An enormous foot passes by my face, and I notice it’s bare. I catch a glimpse of the giant man’s belt as he hoists me up by the back of the pants and shoves me into a rough-hewn sack. As my head begins to clear, I realize the belt is made out of human fingers.
I’m dragged for what seems like miles across the jungle floor. I feel every bump, stick and stone on the ground. Finally we reach our destination, and I’m dumped out into the bottom of a cage. The door swings shut, locking me inside. It’s dark, but I can see enough to know that I’m in a long building made of wood. The floor beneath my cage is pressed dirt and the roof above appears to be thatch. There are other cages around me, all fashioned from some kind of indestructible bamboolike jungle plant. The cages are filled with filthy avatars, most of whom are covered in blood, though it’s impossible to tell whether it’s their own. The entire place reeks like a slaughterhouse.
I’m pretty sure I’m about to die.
I feel someone’s eyes on me and I turn to find a man staring through the bars of the neighboring cage. He’s bald and his eyes are ringed with black. You’d expect someone locked up in a cage to be either terrified or enraged, but there is no expression at all on his face.
“Where are we?” I ask him. “Who was it that dragged me here?”
I can tell he understands, but he doesn’t answer at first. It’s as if he’s trying to figure out whether answering my questions will be to his advantage. Finally he breaks into a broad smile that’s oddly charming despite his broken and blackened teeth.
“That was Ragnar,” he says cheerfully. “The Elemental of Nastrond. We are in his realm, waiting for our chance to fight.”
I have no idea what he’s talking about, but it does not sound like fun. “Sorry, I’m new here. What do you mean?”
“Ragnar brings the best warriors to his fort to do battle. It’s an honor. He’s very picky about who he chooses. The reigning champion right now is Ylva. Whoever beats her gets to kill her any way he likes, and I have a ton of ideas.” He grins and it makes me shiver.
“Like what?” I ask, just for the hell of it.
“Crushing, flaying, then drawing and quartering,” he says lustily. “Her head will get put on a spike, and I’ll eat the heart, but I’m still trying to decide what to do with the rest.”
“Sounds wonderful,” I say. The guy’s clearly criminally insane. He’d make an excellent serial killer.
“Doesn’t it?” he replies. “Hey, listen, I think it’s morning in Dallas. I gotta go to school now or my mom will murder me. But I’ll be back in a few hours. You gonna stay here for a while?”
“Sure thing,” I say. I’ve just lost all hope for the human race. “I’m not going anywhere.”
“Great. You can tell me everything that happened while I’m gone.”
“Yeah, well, just to be clear, I’m not protecting your avatar while you’re sitting in health class, learning how babies get made.”
“I already know all about that shit, bro. And who cares if something happens to my avatar?” the guy says. “I don’t have anything to steal. If I die tonight, I can just start again tomorrow.”
I can’t believe it’s that easy. But I guess it is. The avatar goes still and fades slightly. Somewhere in the real world, a kid just pulled off his headset.
Looking around, I realize most of the other avatars are dormant as well. It’s smart, I think. Otherworld must have been designed so its nights correspond to the real world’s days. Players with headsets can go to work or to school without missing much action. For those with disks, the nights are time to let the brain rest. I can’t afford such luxuries.
The sun is just rising when they come for me. The door of my cage opens and standing outside it is an NPC dressed in the bloody pelt of a beast I don’t recognize. He doesn’t speak, but the spear point he’s thrusting at me seems to indicate that I’m wanted elsewhere. I feel the spear’s tip scrape the skin of my back several times as the NPC marches me out of the building in which I’ve been held. I look back to see a Viking-style longhouse with windowless wooden walls and a thatched roof. We’re heading for the center of a ring fort. Hundreds of wooden posts rise from the circular stone walls. On top of each post is a severed head. The smell is overpowering, and I’m overcome by nausea. The stench doesn’t seem to bother anyone else, which tells me that the players here must be wearing headsets. A crowd has gathered, and everyone wants a look at me. A few step forward to inspect my physique. Most of them have big, burly avatars that were built to intimidate. None of them seems terribly impressed by what I have to offer.
The spear in my back presses me forward toward a fighting pit as the gamblers hurry to place their wagers. Through the crowd I see Ragnar standing at the edge, watching the action below. He’s no longer wearing the boar’s head, but he hasn’t bothered to wash. The top half of his body is completely encrusted in old blood that’s cracked like a dry lake bed. I can see strips of his pale white flesh beneath. The Elemental’s long, matted hair would probably be blond if its true color weren’t covered in a helmet of dried gore. His only clothing is a pair of patchwork pants made from different shades of leather. I’d rather not imagine their provenance.
My captors push me to the edge of the pit. The giant avatar I see down below was designed for brute force. He’s useless for anything other than killing, but I’m sure he excels at what he does best. The dude could rip my limbs off like he was plucking the wings from a butterfly. And yet his eyes seem out of focus and his expression oddly constipated. Then a thin stream of blood trickles from one side of his mouth. The avatar lurches forward, stumbles and falls to the ground, revealing his assassin.
The champion is not a guest. I see it immediately, though I doubt many other human players have figured it out. Ylva must be one of the Children—and her braided blond plaits tell me she’s most likely Ragnar’s daughter. But unlike her beast of a father, she’s sinewy and slim. Her mother was a wolf, I’d guess, judging by her yellow eyes and the razor-sharp claws extending from the end of each finger. Both of her hands are dripping with blood, but the rest of the girl is remarkably splatter-free. Two men hop into the pit with her. One gives her a rag, which she uses to wipe her hands clean. Then the two men drag the corpse out of the pit.
“Give me another!” she shouts up at Ragnar. “Let’s empty all the cages today.”
Ragnar beams down at the creature like a proud father. Then he reaches over and, with one arm, shoves me into the pit.
I wonder how many people have died of broken necks before they’ve even had a chance to fight. I hit my head on the way down, and when I stand up, I’m dizzy and disoriented. A horn blows. I stumble forward, my arms up to defend myself. I expect to die at any moment and I brace for an attack, but nothing happens. I drop my arms and see that Ylva is still twenty feet away. She’s leaning against the wall of the pit, watching me.
“What are you doing?” Ylva asks. She speaks confidently but keeps her voice low as if she’d rather the spectators not overhear.
“I don’t want to fight you,” I say.
“Why not? You wouldn’t be here if you didn’t like to fight,” she replies casually. She holds a hand out and examines her clawlike nails. “That’s how it works, isn’t it? The guests that are sent to my father’s realm are the ones who get excited at the sight of blood.”
“I’m not like that,” I tell her. Then I remember the release I felt when I killed the first man who attacked me in Nastrond. “I don’t want to be like that.”
“Fight, already!” someone shouts from above, and cheering erupts from the crowd. They’re getting impatient.
Ylva ignores them. She’s obviously used to doing things her way. “You don’t want to be?” she repeats with a smile. She’s really quite pretty, I find myself thinking against my will. “What a ridiculous thing to say. Either you are or you aren’t. Here in Otherworld, it makes no difference what you want. I didn’t want to see my brothers and sisters slaughtered because they weren’t part of the plan. I wanted them to live, but they were murdered anyway—just because they took after our mother. Do you have any idea what it was like to watch them die?”
I don’t. “I’m sorry,” I tell her. I used the same words after the goat man told me his story, but back then I felt nothing. Now I truly sympathize. The only thing I can offer her is the truth I’ve genuinely come to believe—even though it just got me kicked out of Mammon. “Guests don’t belong in Otherworld. This world should be left to the Elementals, the Beasts and the Children.”
“Tell that to the Creator,” Ylva says.
“I’m on my way to see him now.” I suppose that’s the truth. If he’s taken refuge in the ice cave, I may not have a choice.
The girl throws her head back and literally howls with laughter. The inhuman sound of it excites the crowd gathered at the edge of the pit. “You think you can convince the Creator to send his beloved guests away?” She’s slinking toward me now. “He brought them here. He thinks we can all exist together. But your kind are monsters, and the Creator is a fool.”
We’re the monsters? That’s rich coming from someone who spends her time murdering people with her bare hands at the bottom of a pit. “If the Creator doesn’t agree to get rid of the guests, I will kill him.” What the hell am I saying? I think I’ve gone too far.
“You’ll kill him?” Ylva’s closer now. “How? You won’t even fight me. The Children are waging war against those who murdered our brothers and sisters, and we all have our part to play in the battle. I stay here in my father’s realm. When the guests come to us, I rip them apart one by one. You will be next.”
“What are you waiting for, bitch?” shouts one of the spectators. “I’ve got all my money on you!”
Ylva spins around. “Him,” she says, pointing up at the heckler. An NPC steps forward and shoves the loudmouthed avatar into the pit. He lands with a thud at the bottom and Ylva is on him. Blood flies everywhere as she shreds his flesh with her claws. She returns to face me, drenched in gore. The creature she left behind is unrecognizable. The crowd above roars with approval.
“You won’t win that way,” I tell her. “Guests like him don’t really die. You can rip them apart all you like. They may die temporarily, but they won’t be gone for good. It’s hard to explain, but they’ll keep coming. And there will be more of them soon. Maybe millions more.”
The smile on Ylva’s face slips away. She sees I’m telling the truth—she’s waging a hopeless war. The slaughter of her brothers and sisters will not be avenged. Her kind is almost certainly doomed. And that fact hurts her more than a weapon ever could. I wish I hadn’t been the one to deliver the blow.
“Believe me—I want the guests to leave as much as you do,” I tell her. “If you let me go, I might be able to help.”
Ylva snaps out of her reverie. “I can’t let you go,” she says, her voice soft. She steps forward and reaches out to gently stroke my face. “Only one of us can leave the pit alive. That’s the rule. If we climb out of the pit together, my father will kill us both. You must fight. Prove to me that you’re capable of killing the Creator. Prove it by taking my life.”
Ylva’s arms slide around my waist and she nestles her head against my chest. The crowd rumbles ominously. They must be as surprised as I am. Then I feel the tips of her claws scratch at my back. One at a time they slowly pop through my skin. The wounds aren’t deep, but the pain is excruciating. I can feel the blood beginning to soak my shirt. I try to break away from her, but she’s incredibly strong and she manages to hold me tight. The crowd sees my struggle and begins to cheer.
“Head-butt her,” a woman’s voice whispers in my ear. “Now!” It could be the voice of God, for all I know. I’m in far too much pain to think straight. The claws are an inch into my flesh now. I have only one option: obey.
I rear my head back and then slam it into the top of Ylva’s skull. The second I make contact, I know the blow isn’t hard enough to do much damage. Still, I feel Ylva’s knees buckle. The claws slip out of my flesh as she falls. I wait for her to get up, but she doesn’t. I’m standing here like an idiot looking down in shock and wonder at the Child I’ve somehow defeated.
“Kick the body!” the voice urges in my ear. “You can’t let it look like you won by accident.”
Carole is beside me with her invisibility cloak on. I have no idea how she found me. She must have bashed the Child’s head with some kind of weapon at the same time that I head-butted her. I’d cry out with joy if I could. Not just because Carole saved me—but because I’m no longer alone.
“Hurry!” she urges. “Get it over with! Gorog’s waiting for us near the border. We need to get back to him before one of these bloodthirsty assholes takes him out.”
I give Ylva a kick designed to appear a lot worse than it is. I can see a slight movement in her rib cage. She looks dead, but she’s breathing. The realm has a new champion and the crowd above doesn’t seem thrilled. Raising my arms in victory, I climb out of the pit.
Ragnar is waiting for me at the top. The spectators gather around us, many of them grumbling. Even the ones who won their wagers seem disappointed with the outcome of the fight. Not enough gore or guts for their taste.
“Very good,” Ragnar says bluntly. “The champion has been defeated.”
I’m not exactly sure how to respond. His daughter is lying on the floor of the pit, a stream of blood trickling from her head. But I seem to care far more than he does.
“The victor is free. He can stay and fight here—or leave Nastrond whenever he chooses.”
I think I know which one I’ll be choosing. I’m not sure how anyone survives in the same realm as this guy’s breath.
“But there can only be one victor,” Ragnar adds.
“What?” I ask.
“You cheated,” he says, and my heart feels like it stops. He knows.
“I did not—” I start to insist.
He holds up a hand to stop me from wasting his time. “I see all. Cheating is permitted.” I breathe a sigh of relief. “We follow one rule. Two cannot leave the pit alive.” He motions to two men standing nearby. They step forward and grab Carole, yanking off the invisibility cloak.
The black yoga outfit she picked up at Gina’s makes her seem impossibly small. Every avatar here towers over her. She looks like one of the pretty, fit moms you’d see in the Brockenhurst mall on a Tuesday afternoon.
“Which of you will be the victor?” Ragnar asks us. “Choose.”
“He will,” Carole says. Her face is pale, but her voice is firm, as if the decision were made long ago.
“No!” I shout. “I won’t!”
“I made the kill,” Carole tells Ragnar. “The decision should be mine.”
Ragnar nods. “And so it is,” he says. He pulls a hunting knife from a scabbard hanging from his belt. With one swift thrust, he plunges it into Carole. Then he pulls it out. The movements are so graceful that if it weren’t for the smear of blood on his blade I would doubt what just happened. Carole looks down at her stomach and totters for a moment. I catch her before she slumps to the ground.
All around us, grumbling members of the crowd are beginning to wander away. There will be no more fighting for now. I drop to my knees and lay her body out on the dirt. I pull away layers of clothes, trying to get a look at the wound, but the blood rushing out of Carole’s abdomen covers everything. I see nothing but red.
“Hey.” It’s Carole, weakly patting my hand. She wants my attention. It’s all I can give her now. She smiles when she receives it. “I knew what I was doing, Simon. I knew how it would end. It was my time.”
“You weren’t even supposed to be here.” I can barely speak. It feels as though there’s a weight on my chest. It takes all my strength to breathe. “Why did you come?”
“You helped me and Gorog—and you didn’t have to. We wouldn’t have made it this far if it weren’t for you.”
“You could have made it a lot farther without me,” I tell her.
“Listen to me, Simon. You’re the one I could save. I did my part. Now you’re going to find a way to save Gorog—and all the other people who are prisoners of Otherworld.”
My vision is blurred and there’s snot streaming from my nose. I’m nobody’s hero. “I can’t. Not me—” I start.
“Then who?” she demands, her voice suddenly strong. “It has to be you, Simon. Who else can do it?” The outburst seems to have drained the last of her energy. Carole’s eyes flutter shut.
I rise in a panic and gather her up in my arms. “Just hold on,” I plead. “I’ll get you to the border. We can stay there as long as it takes to help you get better.”
“No. You can’t waste any more time,” she says. “Promise me.”
Before I can say anything, Carole is gone.
Blind and sobbing, I carry her body into the forest. No one in Nastrond bothers to stop me.